Days 5 & 6: Clearing the drive & Exploratory dig for septic

So the last few work-days have been rather tiresome as my body continues to struggle at the 8900ft altitude my property is at, although I have noticed some amount of improvement, and I also found that this stuff helps:

That’s right; I bought air. Or rather, 95% oxygen (which is normally only 21% of the air we breathe). It does feel weird buying a can that feels empty right off the shelf though, especially one that costs $15.

I chose the methylated version because I figured it’d help open up my airway, but I don’t think that part has much affect on its usefulness.

It’s not a magic bullet either, but if my breathing is redlining – which generally also means I’m feeling very weak, possibly queasy, and possibly a bit dizzy too – then taking a few deep breaths directly from this canister does help bring me back down to a ‘yellow‘ level.

In other words, not all better, but still better.

Anyway, this sage brush….

…can sometimes be taken out with a single swing of my pickaxe – kinda like a golf club – depending on the size of it and how well it’s rooted. But that zaps my energy pretty quickly. So quickly in fact, that it’s often a matter of taking about 5 swings, and then resting for a minute or two. Rinse and repeat, again and again.

So my days have involved many frequent mini-breaks, and if I’m proactive about not redlining – which is a very fine line – then sometimes just focusing on taking deep, full breaths instead of taking the oxygen works.

Apparently, there’s some significance to being at an 8,000-foot altitude as opposed to 9,000 – even for the locals. And it’s been said that the longer you spend at the higher altitude, the more your body can acclimate to it. So all the more reason why I’m looking forward to actually living on the property, but before I can do that, I need road access and a driveway that I can tow an RV up!

Anyway, yesterday was an exciting one because my neighbor Brandon – the one that’s certified to do the soil testing and septic system design – came by to do just that, a day ahead of schedule.

So…I broke ground! Woo hoo!

And of course I had to take some video. First, here’s the excavator trying to get onto the property from the road – since I still don’t have a culvert yet – since I’m waiting on the Road Supervisor to get back with me, which is expected to be later today:

Here’s one of the effortless removal of some stumps and overhanging limbs along the way that were too high to get with my chainsaw:

Mind you, I’m trying to preserve as many trees as possible, which is why I’d rather take down limbs in the way instead of the whole tree. This does result in a bit more curvy driveway instead of one straight path, but I don’t mind. And I think it kinda adds to the character of the place.

Here’s a 4.5-minute video that I cut up a bit and sped up in parts since I figured you wouldn’t want to watch 15 minutes of digging. It shows the digging of one of two holes that had to be 15′ long and 8′ deep – something I thought the extra $400 was worth not doing myself by hand! As always, there’s a tradeoff between cost-savings and convenience.

Brandon suggested that I keep a pistol on me because of the potential for mountain lions, which confirms my suspicions when I was looking at those leg bones the other day.

At the very beginning of the project, I had first started out strapping a 9mm to my leg, which I thought would help keep it out of the way while I work:

But because I realized that it’s easier to not redline if I’m working on the ground instead of standing, I’m literally crawling around in the dirt when I’m clearing brush, limbs, and stumps. So my 9mm was getting dirt on/in it, and I didn’t want to mess it up. So I had opted to only carry bear spray on my belt instead – which of course works for more than just bears.

But after Brandon’s recommendation, I think I’ll try strapping it to my leg again and then just cleaning it off when I get home each day, or maybe getting a holster that’s in the small of my back…although that would no doubt get sweaty. 🤔

One last thing: I might’ve mentioned before that I hurt my arm pretty good when I was testing out a chainsaw that I was buying off of Facebook Marketplace. I was standing between vehicles, and I cranked really hard on the starter cord, not realizing that there would be virtually no resistance and that I was close enough to my Tahoe to smash my arm up against it pretty hard.

It swelled up almost instantly, and hurt bad enough that I couldn’t really do any more cranking on the cord. So when I got back to my camper, I wrapped it up; took an Ibuprofen; and didn’t give it much more thought. But then I noticed this the other day:

Let’s just call it a battle scar. It’s only mildly painful to the touch now; doesn’t affect my work; and is starting to fade already. So I’m grateful that I didn’t break anything and that it’s already on the mend.

Anyway, that’s all for now! Until next time…